Plus: the departure of Dan.
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Saturday Sep 30
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This week, revelations dropped that Mike Pezzullo — the ostensibly apolitical senior public servant — has been playing political games with Liberal Party powerbrokers. As Bernard Keane wrote, it’s clear now what the Home Affairs secretary has been preoccupied with while running “the most incompetently run agency in the Commonwealth”.

Daniel Andrews also decided to call it a day after nine years as Victorian premier. Guy Rundle dove into Dan’s departing gesture — an audacious housing policy that just might destroy social democracy — and Maeve McGregor looked at Andrews’ replacement, “political animal” Jacinta Allan.

Elsewhere Michael Bradley asked how Peter Dutton can believe things that are objectively untrue, Julia Bergin reported ringside as Lidia Thorpe sat down for a Q&A in regional NT on the Voice to Parliament, and Charlie Lewis reflected on an incredible week of people doing the exact thing they once loudly condemned.

Hope you’re having a great weekend,
Jack Callil Jack Callil,
Opinion editor
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LOLAPEZZULLO
Mike Pezzullo and the trashing of the Australian Public Service
BERNARD KEANE

While Home Affairs has been involved in scandal after scandal, it turns out its secretary Mike Pezzullo was busy playing political games with party powerbrokers.

Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo in 2021 (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
Meddling mandarins: How Pezzullo’s powerbroking undermines the Westminster system
YEE-FUI NG

Public servants are supposed to be apolitical, impartial and act with integrity, otherwise public faith is broken.

Exposure of Pezzullo raises more questions about Collaery prosecution
BERNARD KEANE

Mike Pezzullo's role in Bernard Collaery's trial should be under scrutiny in light of revelations about his ties with Liberal figure Scott Briggs.

 
The unsurprising rise of Jacinta Allan, a ‘political animal’
MAEVE MCGREGOR

Labor's critics were always going to frame the handover of power in a negative light.

Jacinta Allan is sworn in as premier by Victorian Governor Professor Margaret Gardner (Image: AAP/Ian Currie)
 
Dan Andrews’ secret is that he understands Victoria, and his haters don’t
BERNARD KEANE

The retiring premier's enemies never understood the extent to which he grasped the electorate — or why his antipathy to business won approval.

Dan Andrews (Image: Zennie/Private Media)
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Qantas pilots eye first strike in 57 years as top brass filibusters Senate committee
MICHAEL SAINSBURY

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder and CEO Vanessa Hudson faced a stern grilling in a Senate committee and a stern strike threat from pilots.

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder and CEO Vanessa Hudson face the Senate committee (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
 
Inflation has popped back up. Does this doom the Yes vote?
JASON MURPHY

It’s a bad time to run a referendum that asks Australians to think about other people, to be generous, to embrace the risk of change.

(Image: Zennie/Private Media)
 
‘A privilege to work for one of the greatest Australians’: highlights from the Rupert Murdoch hagiography
CHARLIE LEWIS

From ex-PMs to ecstatic employees, the words of praise for Rupert Murdoch came thick and fast in News Corp publications.

(Image: Zennie/Private Media)
 
‘Community, that’s where the real yarns happen’: Thorpe sits down for Voice Q&A in regional NT
JULIA BERGIN

Lidia Thorpe was interviewed in language on her opposition to the Voice, what a successful No vote could mean for Treaty, and more.

Senator Lidia Thorpe speaks to ICTV and community mob in Ntaria (Image: Julia Bergin)
 
If Peter Dutton isn’t an outright liar, he’s a clear-eyed believer of his own untruths
MICHAEL BRADLEY

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton always looks sincere. The trouble is that he says things that are objectively untrue, things he cannot possibly believe.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (Image: AAP/James Ross)
 
Shot through the art: How COVID policy jeopardised Australian culture
ESTHER ANATOLITIS

The ways we support our culture give us strength in difficult times. The COVID inquiry must ensure that disruptions to Australian art cannot occur again.

(Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)
 
Canberra in the dark over corporate influence on politics
ANTON NILSSON

The Australia Institute hired corporate governance experts to look into influence peddling by businesses. Turns out not much is known about the money companies spend on political operations.

(Image: Adobe)
 
Dan’s last flourish: his housing policy is an audacious program that will destroy Victorian social democracy forever
GUY RUNDLE

Kneecapping councils, a public land sell-off? The premier's boldness — and his final flourish as he announces his resignation — is serving as cover to destroy the social state.

Departing Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (Image: AAP/James Ross)
 
From Pezzullo to PwC, people really like failing their own very public standards
CHARLIE LEWIS

It has been an incredible week for the glorious political art of doing the exact things one has loudly condemned in the past.

Senator Bridget McKenzie, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, and Mike Pezzullo (Images: AAP)
 
Government spin on Modi was already questionable. Now for an awkwardly timed book launch
SHAKIRA HUSSEIN

PM Anthony Albanese seems resistant to the suggestion that the view from halfway up the Indian PM's arse is far less scenic than advertised.

Anthony Albanese and Indian PM Narendra Modi (Image: Reuters/Amit Dave)
 
Trans people have always been here
NOAH RISEMAN

Despite what those pushing an anti-trans agenda will tell you, Australia has always had trans and gender-diverse people.

Shan Short, Transgender Liberation Coalition activist Aidy Griffin and then-member for Bligh, Clover Moore (centre) at a benefit in August 1993 (Image: Tom Luscombe, reproduced with his permission)